Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 19, 1991 TAG: 9103190089
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEVERLY BEYETTE/ LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: EL SEGUNDO, CALIF. LENGTH: Long
For 14 years, she has been fashion designer to the ultimate material girl, Barbie. And one thing she's learned about the little girls who own all those little dolls is that they think Barbie is pretty in pink.
Black Perkins, who is principal designer for Mattel Toys' fashion dolls, works out of a studio in a top-secret design center here. Each year she creates 100 fashions for Barbie, the company's billion-dollar baby.
One recent morning, the designer, who herself is given more to velveteen stirrup pants and an oversized sweater, took time out from preparations for the recent Toy Fair in New York - where Barbie debuted in 1959 - to talk about Barbie gowns and Barbie lingerie and Barbie . . .
Picking up a blond Barbie swathed in pink, Black Perkins with a gentle rip of Velcro removes a petal overskirt from Barbie's costume ball gown. Holding it to her face, she demonstrates how the overskirt doubles as a costume mask for Barbie's owners.
"Barbie's clothes are designed to have a lot of play value," she explains.
She holds up another Barbie. This one is wearing a ruffled pink overskirt that, detached and reattached as a hem flounce, converts a short gown to long. Or, Barbie can toss aside the ruffles, Black Perkins points out, tie on her pretty white apron and "she's ready to cook."
If most of those little girls who own a Barbie - and most are little girls - have never seen their mothers in either pink flounces or a frilly apron, never mind. Barbie doesn't concern herself with criticisms from feminists that she is a bimbo, a shop-till-you-drop airhead, a Barbie doll, if you will.
"This is not the way adults dress, and it's not the way they're going to dress as adults," acknowledges Mattel spokeswoman Donna Gibbs. But, she adds, "They live reality. They want to play fantasy."
"If it's pretty," Black Perkins says, "little girls want it." (If it's orange, or green, they probably won't, she has found.)
Black Perkins did not set out to become designer to the superstar of toyland. Growing up in South Carolina, she says, "I never had a Barbie doll." She was 28 before she ever saw a Barbie doll up-close-and-personal. That was one fateful day in the summer of 1976 when she answered a newspaper ad placed by Mattel.
During that job interview - to which she brought six years' experience designing clothes for real people - she was asked to take a Barbie home and to bring her back in a week wearing a Black Perkins creation.
What she created was a floral print voile jumpsuit with full, tiered legs and puff sleeves and matching wide-brimmed hat. "Really stylish," she recalled, "almost like a garden party outfit."
That jumpsuit never went into production, but it got her the job. Black Perkins was incredulous - "I couldn't believe they actually paid people to do that."
Right off, there were a few adjustments to be made. As a student at Los Angeles Trade Technical College and later as a designer for both junior and couture houses in Los Angeles, Black Perkins had never created for a mannequin only 11 1/2 inches tall. (For the record, Barbie also has a 3 1/2-inch waist, a 5 1/2-inch bust and 5-inch hips.)
Although there are seven other Barbie costume designers, and eight more who create her accessories, Black Perkins designs about one-fifth of what goes into Barbie's bulging closets. She scours magazines, snoops through stores, goes to couture shows in Europe.
Although Black Perkins does buy on the open market, increasingly fabrics are custom-spun at Mattel facilities in the Far East, Europe and Mexico, where the doll and clothes are made.
Although seamstresses can fashion two bouffant skirts and 20 bodices for Barbie gowns out of a mere eighth of a yard of fabric, 75 million yards of fabric have gone into Barbie fashions over the years.
The clothes for Barbie and Ken are unisize, to fit all 11 male and female dolls in the Mattel fashion group.
On the conference table in front of Black Perkins stands Christie, Barbie's black friend who was introduced in 1968. She wears a white lace bridal gown with a tiny waist, big sleeves and detachable bridal bouquet. Black Perkins lifts the gown to reveal a tiny lace garter on Christie's left leg.
Christie is a beautiful "bride," but, in designing for Barbie and boyfriend Ken and assorted kith and kin, Black Perkins never loses sight of the fact that Barbie is the star, "always."
Barbie gets a new bridal gown each year, and each year it's her top-selling fashion, with more than 5 million gowns sold. Of course, Black Perkins says, "It doesn't mean Barbie is getting married. It just means she's dreaming about it." Barbie will never get married. That would spoil the fantasy.
Barbie is big business. In 1959, Mattel sold 351,000 Barbies at $3 retail. With sales of 600 million Barbies and friends in 1990, the company estimates worldwide revenue of $700 million - half of Mattel's $1.4 billion annual sales.
A very basic Barbie, with only undergarments, sells today for $6 or less. But Mattel selling Barbie dolls is like Eveready selling flashlights. Flashlights require batteries. Barbie requires clothes. Lots of clothes. To date, Barbie owners have bought 250 million units of Barbie clothes and accessories. A lame gown from Barbie's haute couture "private collection" may carry an $8 price tag, but most are in the $3 to $4 range.
Mattel figures a Barbie doll is sold somewhere in the world about every two seconds. Barbie is even in Kuwait. And she's doing just fine in the Eastern Bloc countries. Here at home, Mattel estimates, 95 percent of all girls between the ages of 3 and 11 own at least one Barbie. That adds up to hundreds of thousands of Barbie cars, Barbie lifeguard stands, Barbie wet 'n' wild water parks . . .
The Barbie phenomenon has fascinated psychologists and other observers of the popular culture. Black Perkins has her own theory. When her 6-year-old daughter, Erika Nicole Perkins, plays with Barbie, she explains, "She's in control. I'm still in control of what she's wearing, but Barbie is hers."
by CNB